over a court that doesn't even have enough work to do? millions of americans are hurting because of a law washington democrats forced upon them, and what do they do about it? they cook up some fake fight over judges. a fake fight over judges that aren't even needed. look, i get it. as i indicated, i want to be talking about something else, too, if i had to defend dogs getting insurance while millions of americans lost theirs. but it won't work. and the parallels between this latest skirmish and the original obamacare push are just too obvious to ignore. think about it. just think about it. the majority leader promised, he promised over and over again

that he wouldn't break the rules of the senate in order to change them. this was not an ancient promise. july 14, on "meet the press," said we're not touching judges. this year, july 14, "meet the press," we're not touching judges. then there are the double standards. when democrats were in the minority, they argued strenuously for the very thing they now say we will have to do without. namely, the right to extend a debate on lifetime appointments -- to extended debate on lifetime appointments. in other words, they believe that one set of rules should apply to them, to them and another set to everybody else. he may have just as well have

said if you like the rules of the senate, you can keep them. huh? if you like the rules of the senate, you can keep them. just the way so many democrats in the administration and congress now believe that obamacare is good enough for their constituents, but then when it comes to them, their political allies, their staff, well, of course, that's different. and let's not forget about the raw power, the raw power at play here. on this point, the similarities between the obamacare debate and the democratic threat to go nuclear on nominations are inescapable. inescapable. they muscled through obamacare on a party-line vote and didn't care about the views of the minority. didn't care one whit about the views of the minority. and that's just about what they're going to do here. the american people decided to

give the democrats -- not to give the democrats the house or to restore the filibuster-proof majority they had in the senate back in 2009, and our democratic colleagues don't like that one bit. they just don't like it. the american people are getting in the way of what they'd like to do. so they're trying to change the rules of the game to get their way anyway. they said so themselves. earlier this year, the senior senator from new york said they want to fill up the d.c. circuit one way or the other. fill up the d.c. circuit one way or the other. and the reason is clear. as one liberal activist put it earlier this year, president bush's agenda runs through the -- president obama's agenda runs through the d.c. circuit. you can't get what you want through the congress because the american people in november,

2010, said they had had enough. they issued a national restraining order after watching two years of this administration unrestrained, so now it runs through the bureaucracy and the d.c. circuit. as i said, in short, unlike the first two years of the obama administration, there is now a legislative check on the president and the administration doesn't much like checks and balances. so it wants to circumvent the people's representatives with an aggressive regulatory agenda, and our democratic colleagues want to facilitate that by filling up a court that will rule on his agenda, a court that doesn't even have enough work to do, especially if it means changing the subject from obamacare for a few days. and get this -- they think they can change the rules of the senate in a way that benefits only them. they want to do it in such a way that president obama's agenda

gets enacted but that a future republican agenda couldn't get his or her picks confirmed by the supreme court using the same grass dpras wmr. grassley: we da chance to debate the change in rules, and we should have had, so i'm going to speak now on some things that i think should have been said before we voted, not that it would have changed the outcome but because we ought know what we're doing before we vote rather than afterwards. so i'll spend a few minutes discussing what the majority leader called -- just did on the so-called nuclear option. unfortunately, this wasn't a new threat. over the last several years, every time the minority leader has chosen to exercise his rights under the senate rules, the majority has threatened to change the rules. in fact, this is the third time

in just the last year or so that the majority leader has said that he didn't get -- if he didn't get his way on nominations, he'd change the rules. ironically, that's about as many judicial nominees as our side has stopped through a filibuster. three or so. prior to the recent attempt by the president to simultaneously add three judges to the d.c. circuit that aren't needed, republicans had stopped a grand total of two of president obama's judicial nominees. not ten, as the democrats had by president bush's fifth term in office, not 34 as one of my colleagues tried to suggest earlier this week. no, two have been stopped. and if you include the nominees for the d.c. circuit, we've stopped a grand total of five.

again, not ten as the democrats had done in 2005, not 34 as one of my colleagues tried to argue earlier this week, but five. during the same time, we've confirmed 209 lower court article 3 judges, that's a record of 209 judges approved, to five that were not approved. so this threat isn't based on any crisis. there is no crisis. i'd note that today's "wall street journal" editorial entitled "d.c. circuit breakers" -- quote --"the white house wants to pack a court whose judges are underworked" -- end of quote, lays out a caseload pretty clearly, and i'd ask that this editorial be made a part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: so this is about a

naked power grab and nothing more than a power grab. this is about the other side not getting everything they want, when they want it. now, the other side claims that they were pushed to this point because our side objected to the president's plan to fill d.c. circuit with judges that that court does not need. but the other side tends to forget history, and i think history is something we ought to learn from, so let's review how we got here. after the president simultaneously nominated three nominees for the d.c. circuit that aren't needed, a blatant power -- political power grab in its own right, what did the republicans do? we did something quite simple. we said that we want to go by the rules that the democrats set

in 2006. we said we'd hold those democrats to the same standard they established in 2006 when they blocked a nominee of bush's by the name of peter keisler. so let's be clear about why the democrats are outraged. democrats are outraged because republicans actually had the temerity to hold the other political party to a standard that they established, and because we did, because we insisted that we all play by the same rules, they came right back and said then we'll change the rules. the other side has said in effect, we don't want to be held to the standards that we established in 2006. and not only that, but if you don't give us what we want, we're willing to forever change

the senate. and that's what happened today. now we hear a lot of ultimatums around here, but this ument maim is not run of the mill. it's very different. it's different because this threat is designed to hold the united states senate hostage. it's different because it's designed to hold hostage all of the senate's history and traditions and precedents. it's different because to be effective, it relies on the goodwill of senators who don't want to see the senate as we know it destroyed, or as the constitution writers intended. now, i'd note that today's majority didn't always feel that way. the very way that we've seen expressed today. not too many years ago, my colleagues on the other side described their fight to

preserve the filibuster with great pride. for instance, in 2006 one of my colleagues on the other side said this way -- quote -- "the nuclear option was the most important issue i've worked on in my public life. its rejection was my proudest moment as a minority leader. i emerged from the episode with a renewed appreciation for the majesty of senate rules. as majority leader, i intend to run the senate with respect witr the rules and for the minority rights the rules protect" -- end of quote. in 2005 another of my democrat colleagues had this to say -- quote -- "today republicans, referring to when republicans were in the majority, so i'll start the quote again. "today republicans are threatening to take away one of the few remaining checks on the power of the executive branch by

their use of what has become known as the nuclear option. this assault on our traditions of checks and balances and on the protection of minority rights in this senate and in our democracy should be abandoned. eliminating the filibuster by nuclear option would destroy the constitution's design of the senate as an effective check on the executive" -- end of quote. so you've had two quotes from democrats in 2005, 2006, very strongly supporting the precedent -- or the senate using the filibuster to protect minority rights. but then they were in the minority. now they're in the majority, and the tradition of the senate doesn't mean much. i have another quote from late

senator byrd, 2005. quote -- "and i detest this mention of a nuclear option. the constitutional option. there is nothing constitutional about it, nothing" -- end of quote. but, of course, that was way back then, just six, seven years ago. when today's majority was in the minority. and there was a republican in the white house. today the shoe is on the other foot. today the other side is willing to forever change the senate because republicans have the audacity to hold them, the majority party of today, to their own standard. but why? why would the other side do this? there clearly isn't a crisis on the d.c. circuit. the judges themselves say that if we confirmed any more

judges, there wouldn't be enough to go around. and it's not as if all of these nominees are mainstream, consensus picks, despite what the other side would have you believe that they are somewhat mainstream. take professor pillard, for instance. she has written this about motherhood -- quote -- "productive rights, including rights to contraception and abortion play a central role in freeing women from historically routine conscription into maternity" -- end of quote. now, is that mainstream? she has also argued this about motherhood -- quote -- "antiabortion laws and other restraints on reproductive freedom not only enforce women's incould incubation of unwanted pregnancies but also prescribes a vision of a woman's role as

mother and caretaker of children in a way that is at odds with equal protection" -- end of quote. is that mainstream? and what about her views on religious freedom? she argued that the supreme court of an evangelical liewt ral church which challenged the exception to employment discrimination represented a -- quote -- "substantial threat to american rule of law" -- end of quote. now, get this after she says that the supreme court rejected her view 9-0, and the court held that -- quote -- "it is impermissible for the government to contradict a church's determination of who can act as its ministers" -- end of quote. do my colleagues really believe mainstream america thinks churches shouldn't be allowed to choose their own ministers?

i could go on and on but i hope you get the picture. the point is this: voting to change the senate rules is voting to remove one of the last meaningful checks on the president, any president, and voting to put these views on this important court. so i ask again, why would the other side do this? it isn't anything short of -- it is nothing short of complete and total power grab. it is the type of thing that we've seen again and again out of this administration and their senate allies. and you can sum it up minutes, first, to congratulate our leader, senator reid, for leading the senate finally into the 21st century. that's the step that we've taken today. thank you very much, leader

reid. for your courageous action in making sure that the senate can now work and get our work done. i've waited 18 years for this moment, from 1995 when we were in the minority, i proposed changing the rules on filibuster. i've been proposing it ever since. what's really happened is that this war has escalated, this war on both sides. i said at the time in 1995 that it was pliek an arms race, that if we didn't do something about it, the senate would reach a point where we wouldn't be able to function. well, i thought perhaps -- perhaps at that time i thought my words were a little apocalyptic. but as it turns out, they weren't at all.

and so this is a bright day for the united states senate and for our country to finally be able to move ahead on nominations so that any present -- not just this president, any president -- can put together his executive branch under our constitution. a president should have the people he or she wanted to form their executive branch. every senator here gets to pick his or her own staff. we don't have to have the house vote on it or anybody else. it's true of every member of the house or senate. it's true of the judiciary, the third branch of government. they can hire their clerks, their staff without coming to us. and so now i think it's

appropriate that any president can now form their executive branch with only 51 votes needed in the united states senate, not a supermajority. so that is a huge step in the right direction. and now we can confirm judges of all the courts less than the supreme court -- circuits and district court judges -- again, with 51 votes, without this supermajority that's been filibustering for so long. now, i listened to the republican leader during the run-up to these votes, and he said that we were somehow going to break the rules -- break the rules to make a new rule. well, we did not break the rules. with the vote that we just had, the senate broke no rules. the rules provide for a 51-vote

nondebatable motion to overturn the ruling of the chair. we've done it many times in the past. many times. -- many times in the past. so we did not break the rules. we simply used the rules to make sure that the senate can function. and that we can get our nominees through. i like what the writer gail collins said in her column in "the new york times" this morning about these rules changes. she's had a lot of good things there, but she talked about how we are calling it the nuclear option, and she proffered that it is probably called that because some think changing the rules here is worse than nuclear war. but it's not. it's not. it's time that we changed these rules. and the republican leader earlier said it was the democrats who started this --

the democrats who started this. it reminds me of a schoolyard fight between a couple of adolescents and the teefn is --d the teacher is trying to break it up. and this kid says, he hit me first. no, he hit me first. he stepped on my toe first. who cares who started it. iterit's time to stop it. even if i accept the fact that democrats started it -- maybe they can prove that we did; it is possible ... way back when. but it turned from a punch here and a punch there to almost extreme fighting. it got to the point where we can't function. just on nominations alone, we've had 168 nominations since 1949. i kind of picked that date because that's when all this filibuster stuff kind of really started. 168.

82 of those have been under this president. 82. that's what i mean. i.t. not worth it to talk -- it's not worth it to talk about who started this. if they want to say that the democrats started it, fine. we'll say that we started it. as i said, since 1995, it's turned into an arms race. it's time to stop t that's what we did this morning with this vote. we took a step in the right direction. in 2008 norm ornstein, a congressional scholar, wrote about the broken senate, our broken senate, how we couldn't function. but you can go back even before that, in 1985, my first year here, senator thomas eagleton said that the senate is now in a state of incipient anarchy. i think we had something like 20 or 30 filibusters in the congress before that. so this has been escalating over

a long period of time, and it was time to stop it. and that's what we did this morning. so i say this is a big step in the right direction, but now we need to take it another step further, and that is to change filibuster on legislation. we need to change it as it pertains to legislation. for example, we just had the spectacle of a bill that i reported out of our committee -- unanimous, republicans and democrats. passed the floor of the house unanimously. comes to the senate. one senator held it up for ten days. stopped everything for ten days. and guess what? it finally passed by unanimous consent. should one senator be able to stop things around here like that? so it's time -- it's time to

move ahead. to get rid of the legislature, at the same time to protect the right of the minority to offer amendments that are relevant and germane, to debate that and to have a vote on them -- not that they should win it, but the minority should be able to offer, debate, and have a vote on relevant and germane amendments. -- to the legislation. i proposed 18 years ago a formula that, quite frankly, was first proposed by senator dole many, many years before that. and that was on a cloture vote to end a filibuster, the first time had to be 60 votes. then you could wait three days, file a new petition with the requisite signatures, and at that time you'd need 57 votes. and then if you didn't have 5e votes, you could -- if you didn't have 57 votes, you could

wait three days, file a new petition on the same amendment and then it would require 54 votes. if you didn't have 54, then you would wait three days, file a pu apetition, then you would need 1 votes. so at some point the senate could act, the majority could act on legislation. but the minority would have the right to slow things down. to slow things down to, as george -- senator george horr said in 189 7, to give sober second thought to things here in the united states senate. not to stop strk stop it, not t. slow things down, yes. maybe things shouldn't be rushed into. i understand that. maybe things ought to be amended. people ought to have that right to offer those amendments, not just spurious amendments, but amendments that are germane to

the legislation. but ultimately 51 should decide in this senate on how we proceed, what we vote on, and the outcome of the vote. so i hope that the vote today leads the senate to adopt such an approach in january of 2015 when the new senate comes in. there will be a new congress. i hope at that point that the senate -- i won't be here for it, but i hope the senate will then take that next step of cutting down on the blatant use of the filibuster on legislati legislation. so of the action just taken here today, here's what i predict clierntion i predic--i predict , the oceans will not dry up, a plague of locust will not cover the earth and the vast majority of americans will go on with their lives as before.

but i do predict that our government will work better, a president will be able to forelo form an executive branch, our judiciary will function better, and the u.s. senate will be able to move qualified nominees throug

>> i'd like to thank everyone for coming out today. this is the third and final panel discussion we of posted here. havee honored to incredible individuals to share their stories on the stage. seems toussion celebrate the complete story. veterans tell their own stories, civilians another veterans can

learn from them and begin to engage in more meaningful dialogue's. you will seem, more information about our project.oral history the oral history itself is an opportunity for anyone to share their story in exactly the way they want to share it. i am looking forward to listening to more interviews with veterans for this project. i see many familiar faces in the audience for people who have been interviewed for this project or have interviewed others. i would like to thank the women

veterans and families that work for hosting this event with us and providing incredible resources and programs for women veterans. could you stand up for a moment? she's back there. ok. i encourage you all after today's discussion to talk to her and ask her about the resources she has for veterans around the city. she's raising to work with. -- she's amazing to work with. i went to introduce you to our moderator this afternoon. we worked to make sure the panel was collaborative. asking all of the veterans on our panel what questions they want us to ask and what they would like us to stay away from. which questions have you been asked quite often and which you have wanted to be asked but rarely ever are.

maggie is an independent filmmaker and a cultural anthropologist based in new york city and her move recent -- or most recent film talks about direct movements in iraq and it won the center for documentary award and was broadcast in the pbs series, "independent lens" in 2008. most recently, she co-edited sensible politics, the visual culture of nongovernmental lack of is him published by zone books in 2012 and we are honored to have her moderate panel so now i would like to invite her to give a few opening remarks. thank you. >> i would like to start by thinking alex kelly in the new york public library for inviting me to moderate today.

it's a real honor to be on the same stage with people who have served in the post-9/11 conflict in iraq and afghanistan. my connection to this issue is as a filmmaker. we made a film that we started working on in 2005 and finished in 2008 about a group of army women who served in the sunni triangle and were sent out with all-male infantry units to help deal with some of the problems arising when they were going into homes and in countering iraq he women and children, civilians. -- iraqi women and children. we saw this as important historical lack or is in an ongoing action of the transformation to a fuller gender integration. at this time when we were making the film, very little information was available about

what was going on in terms of what the women were doing. the stories at the women told us were primary sources of information about the new way that women were being used in iraq and the defector combat integration taking place. since then, a new generation of women in combat veterans have emerged. they have come home from the conflict and this generation including the women on the panel today have organized and are changing the narrative and the policies that affect military women and women veterans. they are raising critical issues that the military needs to address including sexual harassment and rape. they express themselves and their writing, memoirs, poetry, artwork and are visible in

radio, television, and film. with that, i would like to get started and have the opportunity to have them tell more of their stories. i will introduce each panelist briefly and we will start with the questions. nicole goodwin, down at the end, and listed in the u.s. army in 2001. she served as a supply specialist and was deployed to iraq in july 2003 for five and a half months. when she returned to the bronx she was one of the first homeless veterans and was featured in the documentary, when i came home, as well as many news programs. she lives in new york city where she is raising her daughter and writing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. she graduated with a ba in english and creative writing, anthropology. teresa grew up in white plains, new york, serving as a marine

corps communications officer from 2002-2006 deploying wants to iraq and is writing a memoir about the deployment relationship and its aftermath. i read her writing at the kennedy center and washington, d.c. she lives and works in new york city. rebecca -- did i say that right? an explosive ordnance disposal technician serving on act of duty from 2004 2 2008. and in the army reserves from 2008-2 thousand 10 deployed to afghanistan in 2006-2007 currently working towards a masters degree in international affairs with a concentration in media and culture.

recently transitioning from the u.s. army as a cap than having served seven years in active duty currently working as a board event manager in a marketing division at the new york stock exchange euro next. she deployed to iraq in 2007 as a company executive officer with the first to gauge combat team. there she managed logistics and operations for her unit to conduct intelligence operations across southern iraq. she deployed to kandahar is a unit intelligence officer for the 217 air calverley -- calgary squadron. these are the panelists. i'd like to talk about your reasons for joining. can you talk about why you chose

to enlist? >> ok, thank you. the reason why i chose to enlist was that it was a dire situation in my home. i come from a very impoverished dysfunctional family and there were not many options open for me to elevate myself. at that time, i was very young, 19 going on 20, and it seemed like my options had run out. living in the south bronx and the living this impoverished life, wanting more, wanting an education and these things motivated me to search for a way out as soon as possible. that's why i enlisted. >> i had a bit of an economic motivation for joining.

i did it to pay for college. i did rotc in undergrad and i would not have been able to a for school otherwise. i went to m.i.t.. >> i'm from the south. every single male in my family has been in the military. i grew up in a very religious environment where women was supposed to stay home barefoot and pregnant and that was not my thing. i decided i wanted to pursue military service. it was interesting. long story short, i had open heart surgery so it took me almost two used to get a medical waiver and i ended up going into explosive ordinance disposal, basically the bomb squad. i did that relatively challenging job.

economics played a big role in it. we're in the middle of a war but i want a college degree and i don't want to have any debt. there was still a patriotism factor as well, what i would refer to from the deep south in my family heritage. >> i think we all share the common idea of the camaraderie and that it was a chance to travel and meet a lot of new people, be taken out of my comfort zone. i joined the rotc my sophomore year of college and paid for my school. when i was a sophomore in college, 2001, post 9/11 that happened and i got a letter from the rotc department who said we would pay for school but this is

an opportunity for you to serve after college. i thought it would be a great opportunity for me to be apart of something bigger than me especially after 9/11. i was searching for a way to give back and rotc was that. it was a great experience all together being on active duty. i got everything i wanted and then some. >> to talk about how others reacted to your decision to join up? >> unit on my campus was ready at it. it's a small school, a small organization on campus. i was in a sorority and a lot of my sisters were just shocked when i said i wanted to join rotc. i am five foot thing and it really surprised them. we had drills, had to wear the

uniform and at that time it was the olive green uniform. they referred to me as the pickle. it was a joke. i was not being made fun of. it was a term of endearment. it almost raised awareness that anyone could join the rotc if i could do it and i'm only five foot. i will not say i led that alone but we had a pretty good turnout next year people wanting to become a part of the program. at first it was just like, really? they could imagine me becoming a part of that organization. when i said i was in a sorority or a cheerleader in high school, people in the army were surprised by that when they saw me more in uniform. it was an interesting dynamic. >> you shocked them both ways. i want to have each of you talk a bit about what your m.o.s. was, how you made the decision to choose it, and what skills

you learned in the process to get down to some of the brass tacks. could you start? >> i wanted to be a duty and be special forces but that was not an option. i picked what i thought was the next best thing and i went dod eod i was in the bomb squad. i always ask people if they have seen "the hurt locker," and that was me except it was not all that realistic but it gives people a vantage point to start from. we mostly did ied missions, respond to them when people found them or after they went off. ied's are basically roadside bombs. i did a lot of work with

explosives and then i did a lot of work when we were in afghanistan because i was the only female in the unit i was assigned and attached to, i did a lot of biometric data collection being a woman and having the skill set i have. you are a woman and you can disarm bombs. we will bring you and you will also mingle with the local women population that all of our men can deal with. i got cross trained in a lot of the different skill sets outside of my actual job description. one of the things -- i do miss a blowing stuff up. it's awesome and fun. i miss the challenges, everyday something different. you never knew what you're going to get yourself into. i relayed it honestly to be a policeman or a firefighter

because there's a lot of downtime followed by a lot of -- we've got to go. get your stuff and let's hit the road. one of the ironies about being in afghanistan and in the bomb squad is doing my actual job was not the most restful. driving through the mountains was the most stressful. driving a 20 ton vehicle on mountain pass with a 600 foot drop to your right-hand side. please, just get me there. i can deal with whatever i need to when i get there but i have to get there first. there were a lot of interesting contradictions and ironies associated with my position but about a.m. 2004-2008, there were about 50 women in the whole field in the army. very infrequently did you ever see another woman who was in eod so that made me an anomaly. sometimes just doing a woman in

the military can be an anomaly in and of itself but it's even more isolating in a sense which is challenging. i really enjoyed my job and i kind of miss it sometimes. it would be nice to make something go boom every once in a while. >> you were in a team of how many? cliques teams of three to four. you were assigned to different locations. most of the time he would send a whole unit over but our unit, a lot of people think about companies being a couple hundred people or so. ours was 20 people. we were very small, very handsome in. everybody knew at everyone but we were centrally located and we would disburse so you were only with two or three people that you specifically have deployed with from your unit at any given

time. it is a very different set up than what we consider to be outside of the mainstream military and we did things a little bit differently. it was a unique set up at the time. and >> can you give us a sense? you would be told there might be something you need to go check out in this place and your group of three or four would be assigned that task? >> you never go out by yourself. you always have to have an escort. i work with task force paladin, a counter ied task force. we had an intelligence officer and post blast analysis that would go out and collect biometric data from the actual blast site itself and then we had our team who would deal with actual ordinance or ied's that were not exploded. we would kind of sit around and wait. they were always outside doing this and all the time.

we would get a call. we think we've found something. we need you to respond. you have to have an escort and a lot of times, combat engineers and military police were already out on mission and they would have to come back and get us in our two vehicles and escort us out to the site where we were in order for us to take care of what we needed to take care of. >> you were an intelligence officer. >> we worked with task force paladin. i was not directly assigned with them but we did work with them. when i was in iraq, it was security force missions were the brigade and we ran convoys

through the entire country starting in the south. baghdad, back down. if there was a threat along any of the routes, they would assess those threats through what task force paladin was able to preside. indirectly, we probably supported one another. >> can you talk about your training and what you did in iraq? >> that was my first appointment. i studied psychology in college. when i wanted to become an officer i was told that you should have a business degree and i used psychology every single day regardless of my specialty. first and foremost, i wanted to be an officer because i wanted to be a leader and intelligence happened to be the branch i

chose going in. i liked intelligence because basically as a new officer, second lieutenant, i was responsible for a platoon, aerial assets. i was responsible for a 24 person platoon that operated these unmanned drones for the unit. >> which part? >> this was seven iraq. -- southern iraq. i was with a manned helicopter unit. i went in with some experience from that understanding more of the aerial respect they are and what needed to be looked at in

terms of intelligence but we were in southern afghanistan during the same thing except now i'm dealing with pilots putting themselves at risk going out several times a day and flying helicopters themselves. these were small aircraft with two pilots, no passengers, single-engine aircraft. they were built in the 1970's and in terms of technology, it did not really improve from what was used in vietnam. it was an interesting dynamic between iraq and afghanistan and what my mission was all within the intelligence cycle. >> and afghanistan, where there are people flying at the helicopters during the reconnaissance? >> we had apaches and kyowas

that went out. the difference between the two, the ability to target where as the other is the smaller craft going out not so much in an often several-- offensive role, but they're looking for information, taking pictures, literally hanging their arms out. they were frequently targeted because they are small aircraft. they do not fly fast like an apache or an air hawk. it was up to my group to assess the damage to the aircraft and understand where they were being targeted and at what level. it was to identify the capabilities of the enemy so that we were protecting the ground troops. there were times when our pilots would go out every time they were directly supporting someone

on the ground and often times they were shot at because they were supposed to disrupt those. click sets interesting. can you talk about your role? >> i was a communications officer in the marine corps. you don't get to pick. they picked for you. i saw that i had a technical degree from undergrad and they made mickey and indications officer. i worked with radio, satellite, wired telephone. i was deployed for seven months in 2004 and one of the reasons i became an officer also was the leadership asset -- aspect. growing up with three younger brothers and having been a camp counselor was the best preparation for that ever except

for in iraq with machine guns. the main role was to be on a base which did get mortared and lay cable underground. this was before the marine corps had a lot of multi-channeled communication between different bases. within our own base, we had to make sure all of the telephone, cable, and the fiber-optic was the difference. my marines were really hard- working. they would go out there and dig trenches to lay cable underground. we would get the entire company, 200 marines, to help us out. they took out all of the old iraqi telephone wires and replaced it with 30 kilometers of cable all total through the base. then we would get a mortar and the cable would you cut and then

the repair marines would have to go repair it. it's being in charge of the whole cycle but i work with a lot of fantastic people. >> that's great. nicole? >> my story is a story of misdirection. i wanted to be a journalist, actually. the recruiter told me that i could not make the cut. i did not get the proper schooling to enlist as -- to get the journalism slot. i was like, what do you guys have to offer. he mentioned a few other mos's, and then he mentioned supply, and i was like, well, i have retail experience. i have office experience. supply and garrison versus

supply during a deployment is really two different atmospheres, different tribes of stressors, whereas when i was and garrison in germany, it was a lot more fun. i felt like -- i felt very interconnected because i was doing supplies and i was in an ordinance company. i was in an ordinance unit, rather, and my company was the largest of the unit. i could order a pen. i could order a machine gun. i could order m 60s. i mean, these things were on the books and on paper. it is very interesting, the accounting for these incredibly massive and powerful weapons,

and at the same time, i need a royal -- a roll of toilet paper, some tissue. it's ironic. at the same time, you have unit supply. you work with alphas. alphas also work with the warehouse. juliet was medical supply officers. it was a small world amongst the logistics family. we all kind of knew each other and knew how to get to each other, versus in different aspects of the military, the job can be a little more secular and separated. so this was more like, professionally, a bit more of a happy family. there were strange aspects of it, but then, when you take that to deployment, it's a different

situation, because the budget itself would fluctuate. there were times when we did not have the supplies to give the soldiers in a life or death situation. we ran out of flak vests to assign to different soldiers, and we had to scrutinize and rotate and come up with innovative ideas, how to protect whom, who was going on what mission, where can we borrow what we need? it was dire situation sometimes. it was very out -- very unspoken in my section, but i could constantly see that way on each other's brains.

if we run out of gas masks, what are we going to do if there is a biochemical attack. that conversation puts you in a strange dichotomy in relation to the rest of your unit, in relation to other supply officers and your position in the hierarchy of the military. it is an aspect i have not been very open about because people think well, it is only logistics, but the quartermaster s and logistics, supplying the military, these are things that are life or death situations and something you cannot really teach in training. it kind of just happens along the way. i think seeing that aspect, that

hierarchy, those echelons, that latter go up and down, really made me the person and the writer i am today. >> you spoke like you are at the center of the circle in the sense that people have to come to you. >> very much we're at the center of the circle, and again, this was never really spoken about. i think a lot of people, even the media, when it concerns itself with war and sensationalism, there were times when my job was pretty mundane. i was just sitting in the office and no one was there. 9-5 and no one has picked up a lock today, and then two of my

friends in a section would say we have to get to camp anaconda. we have to get to the fight alley. a lot of our job is literally pushing pencils, but at the same time, supply is an essential part of operations, and we were kind of an son because we were not the ones through the door first. it is an aspect that is never really played up. >> i also wanted to have you talk some more about your experiences in iraq, particularly, tell us about maybe one of the more memorable stories where you felt that your skills and the things you were trained to do really paid off, that you made a difference.

it sounds like you had that awareness every day that you are doing your job. at times it might have seemed out of sight, but you were not. you were an underpinning of how the operation was going to be supplied. can you talk about that? >> sure. i was in the first battle for falluja in april, 2000 four. a lot of people remember the second battle when we actually took the city. in the first one, the marines went in for a few days and then pulled back to try to let the iraqis do their own thing. we had just gotten there about a month before and it was really crucial that we made sure that everybody had conductivity and could talk to each other. sometimes, we would call each other electron warriors, kind of jokingly, because we would be talking on the radio or trying to connect a satellite, and i do

remember when a succession of different medication systems broke and we had to find different ways to talk to the base about 50 miles away. we were trying to translate between one thing, how we would dial on the satellite phone and then get to talk to a different base so that our higher commanders could be able to talk to each other and know what was going on. so, between that and forcing cable undergrounds of the people could have electronics flowing instead of having -- and actually be able to communicate via e-mail and with images. sending images for drones was a big thing because we need a lot of and with for that. we need to be able to shoot, move, communicate. so, some would be shooting, some would be moving units back and forth and we would be helping people communicate.

>> at what point would you say the infrastructure got up, the communication infrastructure? was after 2004 or right after that time? >> for our particular job, my particular unit, it was still come veritably early in the -- comparatively early in the war. i the time -- by the time we left in september and on into the winter, the infrastructure was far up on that base. in general, throughout a rack, we had satellite communications and -- throughout a rack, we had satellite medications and things like that. >> rebecca? >> my story is extremely graphic. so, be forewarned. again, we would respond to

scenarios that sometimes included suicide bombers. if someone blew themselves up, we would go pick up the pieces. in doing things like that, you tend to develop somewhat of a -- we could call it a warped sense of humor. you find ways to make things less intense. having a morbid sense of humor was a way that a lot of me and my guys and the people i worked with kind of work. we got a call one day and there had been a suicide bomber who had blown himself up in one of the main cities and it was the first suicide bombing that i had been called out on, so i did not really know what to expect. ordnance is one thing. blown up people are another. i am with a lot of infantry guys , and one hands me a stick of

gum and he is like here, chew on this, it actually has -- it actually helps with the smell because these bodies have a distinct sense of smell. and my team leader was not a frantic person. we did not get along, so i was not relying on him -- was not a friendly person. we did not get along, so i was not relying on him for device. i do not watch horror movies because i have seen what that stuff looks like in reality. basically, when someone blows himself up, usually all that is left is part of their head and part of their legs. i was searching for secondary devices. hey, here are humongous boulders. could you please go check these boulders to make sure there are

no secondary devices? i was like sure, whatever. i am walking over these very unstable walks, -- huge rocks, and i slept because i was carrying like 40 pounds of gear and -- slipped because i was carrying like 40 pounds of gear and a weapon. and i slip and put my hand in this pile of do, and i was like, what is this? and it was the guys face. and it was like, yeah um, here is a piece. let's take this back for analysis. these are the kinds of things i dealt with on somewhat of a daily basis. it's kind of like playing a videogame. i'm not going to live. it was kind of third person, i am kind of outside my body now, watching this stuff happen, and

i am not sure how i am going to deal with it, so i'm not. i am going to put that in the back of my file cabinet and deal with that when i get home. so, those were some of the stuff -- and that was my first experience with those types of situations. there were guys who had seen those things multiple times and had dealt with way worse stuff than that particular situation, and things got even more intense after that. there were three months when it hit the fan for a while and we were up to our eyeballs in missions and absolute craziness. talking about these kinds of things and what we did, i am sure we will get to this in a little bit, but i want to touch on it quickly, it's like, what do people really want to know?

when you are out there in the audience thinking about, what am i going to ask a veteran or what should i say, sometimes i'm like, this is an stuff that i talked about a lot. i am perfectly comfortable telling some of these tories -- stories and you can see on the receiving end, of the response are the recoil of i don't know what to say to this story. it's interesting when you talk, what are you proud of in your service, what made you this person, those are the kinds of things that of made me kind of who im and given me some of the perspectives i have. i come back and we see things and we do things and people get uptight about stuff and it's like, nobody died, chill out. it's not that serious. you know, slow your roll, bring your -- bring it down and not show. let's relax and figure out what we need to get done. those situations that are

gruesome and intense take some time to process and get through once i had some time to process. that they are still critical in crafting a perspective about life in general. >> i can imagine. do you want to jump in? >> and i was in afghanistan, it was the beginning of the surge for the u.s. we went into southern afghanistan, and at that time there were multiple ground units . we are looking of 400 soldiers, 200 soldiers per so many square miles, and not every battalion belong to the same overall

brigade. there was a lot of fragmented communication going on, different standard operating procedures, so was really difficult to operate when you are not all train together. we were supporting multiple ground forces who are having difficulty communicating. some of the different communication architecture was in place but they had not train together in these states. we hit the ground running and had been looking at intelligence for the year leading up to this, and i was stressed with my soldiers for being able to support multiple units on the ground and try to direct or at least make recommendations to my commander on where he would direct aircraft and who to support. i just felt this immense pressure to be right. intelligence is supposed to drive operations.

that is what we were aiming toward. it is not what always happens. it is one of those things where you are dammed if you do and dammed if you don't. if you are predicting future enemy operations, my commander would want to counter that. the enemy may not actually be successful. that's good news. becca be frustrating. -- that could be frustrating. but i think a moment in afghanistan where -- we were there in the winter of 2010, and the vegetation is very bare during the winter in the south. the enemy was relatively quiet. there we got into the spring of 2010, the budget station starts to come back -- the vegetation starts to come back. this is an area where growing poppy was really important to the local economy. it also helped to give the foreign fighters cover and concealment to be able to move freely through southern

afghanistan. so, i went out on a flight with the commander of one of the units to be able to see what they saw and how much they could actually detect. we flew through there and it was incredible. there were areas where these were five feet high. when the enemy has the advantage , the friendly forces have a disadvantage in that they get there and there are these five foot high grade rose they have to navigate over -- grape rows they have to navigate over that the enemies have to navigate through.

we got into the fall were the vegetation started to die out and we realize through almost a full year there that the enemy had these underground tunnels and that there were huge cash lights. some was with medical supplies. some was with weapons, ammunition, and we realized that there were multiple firing positions -- what we thought were multiple firing positions were just the enemy navigating underground. we said this is what we think is going to happen at this location because last spring we saw this and now we're realizing they are navigating from one position to the next underground. it was one enemy fighter. the ground units started to trust us through this nearly year-long relationship we established, so they started

exploiting the underground sites and pulling a lot of ammunition out of -- potentially pulling it out of enemy hands. we started to see success there, and it was really nice to feel like the work we had been doing, that it taken so long, was actually paying off. every time we had either an aircraft that was shot at or hit or -- you sit in an operations center and the soldiers would day in and day out look at reporting. they would look at significant activity is a cayman. to them, it was just statistics, -- as it came in, and, to them, it was just a test experience this unit ran into ied's and lost five people. -- to them, it was just statistics. this unit ran into ied's and lost five people. that's devastating to a small unit.

when we were in the center sitting behind computers it felt more like a videogame than reality. we started to ask, are we sending these people into harm's way? did we miss something? polling ammunition out of enemy hands was really -- polling ammunition on of enemy hands was a really rewarding moment for us. it was a way for our analyst to engage and support the guys and gals that were going outside the wire every day. it also helped to build the confidence in what we were doing. we felt that relationship was really important so that intelligence would actually drive operations. >> interesting. can we now turn to talk a little bit about the skills you learned and how you transitioned into

civilian life? nicole, can you talk a bit about what you fell you gained from your experience and how your transition went? >> my story is a very strange arc. i always considered a continuous, build upon and read transforming myself. i don't want to say i didn't learn any skills. i reinforced to im as a person being out in iraq. again, my job position in the psychological connections to my job position, i got to see many aspects of iraqi people and my fellow soldiers in the military. the tricks that played on my mind was very difficult, even

now, to explain to many people. i think one of the things that helped me cope and filter out and decipher, constantly modify my perception about my relationship to my deployment was that i am an avid reader. i am an avid writer. and the skill of doing my job. the routine of that, helped keep me sane in that situation. it was very difficult for me because, again, being the supply, i got to stay behind a great deal, but at the same time, the fact that there were so many people in my unit constantly task out to different portions of the military, like, we supported tankers and infantrymen, and i had many friends that were medics.

they were constantly sent out on missions, and then we had iraqis come in and they had jobs on our post, while we were stationed there, so they ran the laundromats and built the cafe. it was estranged economy because on one hand -- dichotomy because on one hand you see the situation as this is the enemy and we are here to liberate. but on the other hand, you see the position of there are people here who are not the enemy who are of this collective and this ethnicity that look like me, being an african american woman, so there was a social aspect there. they are risking their lives to feed their families, to feed their children, and share this experience with me in a way that

you come to the states, and wherever they were stationed from, they cannot explain that to their civilian counterparts, whether it be their families, their spouses or their children. i think that played a huge psychological -- placed a huge psychological burgeon upon me for many years. how do you explain -- burden upon me for many years. how do you explain this experience to people that do not want to hear all the bad? they want to hear you file for your country, your home, your safe, -- they want to hear you fought for your country, you are home, you are safe, you are alive. i was when he three and a rack. i had a birth a. -- i turned 23 in iraq. i had a birthday. i had to celebrate my birthday in a situation that was constantly reminding me of my

own mortality. i had my daughter in march of 2003 and redeployed to germany in april of 2003. i met up with my unit in iraq in july of 2003. i did not see my daughter until nine months later. the kind of personal separation and personal experience, that really placed a huge psychological word in upon me because it is such a remote experience -- burden upon me because it is such a remote experience. coming back home, i really wanted to start where i thought i had left off. i had a lot of college friends around me and they would never -- they wanted me to talk about my experience in the military and i pretty much was like no, let's just pick up where we left off.

for many years, that's how i dealt with it. these are my experiences. i kept them in a box, and this was the person i wanted to be again. transforming from that and realizing that life had gone on, and you are a mother now and not the young girl that went away -- even though i was much older than a lot of the enlistees i knew. i came in at 20 and got out and turned 24. there were so many dynamics of change that happened in that short span of time. it took me so many years to digest it and to deal with this concept of ptsd and depression and anxiety, and all of these labels for mental illness when it really is about a person having a dynamic experience that is very convoluted and cannot be explained as good or bad, living

with ambiguity, and realizing that there is so much that is -- america is really isolated, culturally, to this concept of war, more than any other country in the world, in my experience. going back into school, going into a routine and reestablishing my connections to my older self, who i was and my interest, and combining that with my experiences, and the confusion of it all, and is building upon that as a person, that is where the transition, the positivity of the transition really began, but that took 10 years. it took 10 years, and i was a lot of downward slope -- it was a lot of downward slope between those two years and the acceptance of help from the

harlem vet center where i still receive treatment. building a support system, and realizing that -- where a lot of my anger came from, and a lot of these concepts of misunderstanding, and realizing that there are going to be people who want to listen but they are not going to want to hear everything, and that's ok too, but being willing to tell it anyway. so future generations like my daughter won't just read a paragraph about iraq and think that is the whole story. so, i think now it is going on about 11 years since my enlistment. it has really been a journey. and realizing that there is nothing about that experience, not labeling a good or bad, but saying this is my perspective and this is a part of me, and i am not necessarily proud of my

position in the war, but i am proud of the person that has come out of my perspective from that experience. >> as you say, you have learned to live with that. teresa, can you talk a little bit more about your leadership skills and your transition? >> and i joined rotc i was a quiet kid. i stayed quiet pretty much until i had to lead large groups of people. i got plunked down into deployment. i deployed after being in my unit for about four weeks. the first day i showed up, my commander was like great, welcome aboard, don't unpack, you're leaving soon.

i got over there and they had shuffled officers because they were short staffs. i did not even know i would be leading marines until i stuck my boots in the sand. what i learned over there was how to talk to anybody, because i grew up kind of nerdy and i was kind of quiet. i was talking about a lot of math and physical stuff, communicating architectures and things like that, but i was leading people. and everything from the 18-year- old whose already married with a pregnant wife to my 35-year-old senior enlisted who would give you advice on what we are supposed to do next and i would be like, great, thanks, and then go tell the rest of the platoon, this is what we are doing now, being able to gather information, listen, talk to all of your troop's and everyone around you, and then be able to tell everybody what to do and execute afterward was something i learned during that

compressed appointment, because -- deployment, because when you are doing all the training, yeah, it is kind of real, but nobody is actually firing at you. and there is not the actual pressure of troops on the ground depending on the communications architecture you are putting together. that was a huge thing that i learned over there, and to be comfortable and walk into a room and realize that everybody in there is in fact human, and you are going to have to be able to work together and talk with each other. the deployment, i served in the california marines for two more years. then i got out and went to graduate school. i was in a phd program, which i have since finished. being around people after the marine corps who were for year younger than me ash for years younger than me and write out of

college and going to more school afterwards, it was difficult for me the last -- two years. i had to be a teaching assistant for a class. it turns out undergrads do not salute. [laughter] >> i could have told you that. >> who knew? that was really hard. i would want to reach across the desk and show a kid, but then i realized, that would get me arrested. in the marine corps, you could do a lot. i never did that. [laughter] it took a couple of years to dial down the pressure, and the pressure on myself to shoot, because there is this -- on myself too. it is all about brute force through the night, digging a trench, laying that cable, doing whatever you have to do. the projectsl with and everything, i was waiting for somebody, tell me what to do, and that is not the point of doing scientific research.

the point is to find out what science has to tell you. that was hard. it was hard at first to make friends. bit, illy, bit by started making friends in my program. i actually only happened after i came forward a little bit with my story and started confiding in my classmates of the things that had happened on deployment and the experiences i have had. what it was like to be on that base and finding people i could really trust. one of my best friends in the grant program was an army officer who was getting a masters in physics to go back and teach at west point. active duty.in we became friends. from there, we developed a good cadre of people to hang out with. from there, that helps a lot. the writing has helped, but i gather we will talk about the writing stuff in a future question. rebecca? >> learning how to blow stuff up

doesn't really translate. what i gained most from it was perspective, adjustment. i grew up pretty sheltered. i've always been a bit of an over achiever. i think what i've learned most is how to chill out. even that is kind of hard. thist err to grad school semester, and i am taking for graduate-level courses. here now, i'm up at -- to in papers due monday and tuesday. >> good luck. >> as you were saying, there is kind . . e other women never, and then i got dealt it pretty bad hand are as it goes, our commander and first sergeant were not nice people -- i had a

pretty crappy experience with my unit and some of the things i don't with from the men i worked with. one of the things that i learned -- it was a hard lesson -- i can take care of myself. i don't need anybody. that was definitely one part of it. on the flip side of that, part of that is i learned out -- i found out i do need people. actually coming to the realization that i have to be willing to accept help sometimes , that it really isn't always just about me, and yes, i can do my hardest to get through things on my own and i don't need any assistance, but you -- but when it came down to it, i really did need assistance. i needed help. unemployed and bouncing from couch to couch for quite some time, and it was really tough to look at my best friend and the like, hey, dude, can i live with you for six months?

he is like, here, have a couple hundred dollars. you need to go back to the gym. you need to work out. he's like, i'm buying you a gym membership. go to the gym. being able to say, to look at people and say, thank you, without having to say anything else or having to feel like i had to apologize for where i was .t i still a lot of times feel like i am an outlier. i didn't have a very good experience. a lot of times, i do not relate well to veterans. a lot of times, i'm very wary of veterans. i was burned badly by the people that i worked with. i'm very sensitive to people who tell me they are veterans. , i actd of like, ok tough. there is kind of that play and that dynamic. i moved up here for a job about

two and half years ago. i love new york city. i want to stay. i found roller derby. roller derby, for me, has kind of been a little bit of a place, but at the same time, i'm a roller derby referee. i'm still on the fringe in a manner of speaking. i have had to learn how to navigate that fringe in a sense. , doings been interesting it completely, 100% on your own, and having to navigate that, and then figuring out, i cannot do this all on my own. it is about finding a path. it is a journey. every day, you kind of reinventing yourself sometimes, where you have been and where you are now and where you want to go. >> rebecca, i wanted just to specifically ask you, because when you came back you joined the class action suit against

rumsfeld, and for those of you who don't know, it was a class action suit against the defense secretary gates and the pentagon for not taking note of the thatl harassment charges women had been sexually harassed. 17 former and current members of d,e military suit -- sue claiming that this not paying attention by the pentagon had led to violence against -- violence being tolerated. the suit was dismissed. in the spring of this year, you testified in front of the senate armed services committee, and you discussed your experience of being raked in afghanistan and your feelings about the military criminal justice system.

i wanted to just ask you about your decision, the steps to go forward, to come forward, to go public, and to testify about your experience. can you talk about this decision , and then your decision to become an advocate for changes in the military justice system? like i said, my experience is not the experience of all women. i got dealt a bad hand in a manner of speaking. just because i had a bad experience in the military doesn't necessarily mean that everyone else had one. sometimes i feel like in the talk about -- around this issue of sexual violence in the military, a lot of it gets stereotyped. are dynamics in the military and make this an issue that is challenging to deal with , but that does not mean that everyone acts this way.

there are good people in the military. there are good men. there are good women. that being said, the bad apples in the military have a lot of leeway to get away with the crack they get away with because of the way it is set up. i think that dynamic is difficult when you are trying to talk about, how do we fix it, how do we adjust it, is it gendered, is it non-gendered? i was raped by a guy and worked with. i initiallyy -- stood side and not to say anything. i wanted to get on with my life. now the military has two types of reporting. did a restrictive report, which makes you a statistic. nothing happens. after that, again, i got out of the litter -- the military, and i didn't want to discuss it or talk about it. i was approached by this legal

team who come in the end, the whole idea was challenging the doctrine where you cannot sue the military for anything. it doesn't matter what. that was the premise, eventually trying to challenge this legal doctrine, under the premise that most of the time when you are suing the military, they usually -- they usually come back with the idea that, no, you cannot sue us because this is something that relates to military service or it is a function of the military environment, or in the case of when it started, the guy sued the military because they gave him lsd without asking permission. they are like, no, we gave you a listing in order to experiment as a part of what would happen if you are actually given this in a combat environment. it serves a military function. that is what we were challenging, that rape serves no function whatsoever. the military says they have this zero tolerance policy. as was mentioned, it has been

thrown out. biggest irks is the adge basically called it hazard of service. rape is a hazard of service. that is written in the legal documents that were handed down by the judge. again, the whole idea is -- when i first decided to speak about this, it happened unexpectedly. i signed on to this lawsuit as one of many participants and then got thrust into the media spotlight kind of last-minute. they called me on a friday and said can you come film with tbs and i was like no, probably not, why? and they were like, though we had somebody drop out. and i was like, i have to take kids -- take care of kids. they put me on a flight, did the [no audio] [no audio]

interview, put me on a flight and gloomy home. the interview aired tuesday morning and then they dropped the lawsuit about an hour after the segment aired, which then kind of pushed me into a whirlwind of stuff. i ended up working for an organization here in the city that deals specifically with the issue of sexual violence in the military and trying to adjust policy. it has been interesting because it has been about three years since i started speaking publicly about the issue, and there has been a major uptick in media coverage of awareness around this issue of men speaking out about their experiences as well. a lot of you probably heard if you heard about these types of things the children will brand introduced a proposal -- jill hillebrand introduced a proposal to take sexual assaults out of the chain of command. i support this because an infantry commander is not a lawyer and he is probably

dealing with the accused and the accuser, and you cannot be objective in those situations. again, without going into too much detail, there definitely needs to be something that gets done, and the only way you can change the military is literally through an act of congress. so, these types of things have been in the works for a while. people ask about the combat exclusion policy. doesn't that just mean more women are going to get raped? no, it does not. women are just as capable of doing the things men do, and the standards need to be said. i honestly believe the leadership you have is where the line is going to be drawn. good leadership, this kind of stuff doesn't happen. bad leadership, anything goes. and you have to hold people accountable for their choices.

i know there is some leadership that chooses to sweep this under the ride and pretend it doesn't happen. but again, my perspectives are, i still have very strong feelings about the military. i believe it was a good thing for me. there is a lot of cognitive dissonance there. i can do the veterans day parade. there is an overwhelming sense of pride -- i cannot do the veterans day parade. there is an overwhelming sense of pride and then this. and i cannot reconcile that. maybe i will get over that one day. i believe those who choose the military should have the best experience possible. there is a lot the military can offer, your views on war aside. people choose for different reasons. but whatever your reason, you should be able to serve with that -- serve with honor and come out of the other person on

the other end. and if there is violence, those people should be rightly dealt with. we have some work to do, but social change takes time and we are doing it. i think we are getting there. >> can i piggyback on a lot of what she said? like you, i was raped in iraq. for seven years, i suppressed it. i never reported it to my unit. my unit did not have my back on many issues, so i knew the minute -- if i decided to even say hey, i was raped. this concept of nonviolent rape does not exist in people's minds. it is an oxymoron, so that dynamic, i was like, look, i am in it. i have to get out.

i have to make choices and sacrifices. i constructed my brain to think, well, it was just sex that i didn't like. for many years, several years, you know, i just harbored this resentment and all these emotions and all this pain, and i even got into a relationship that spiraled freely downward, and for many years the depression got worse, where it would go from three days of like, hey, i am just laying in bed for no reason to six months of geez, what did i do for six months? and this overwhelming cloud of sadness the blocked everything, and i can't recall six months of my life. it went from six months to a year and a year to another year, and it got to the point where in 2010, my depression got so bad

my apartment was a mess, and i literally -- my daughter was taken away by acs. she was removed from my home for six months. it literally was so bad for me that suicide was a huge option. and then, instead of that, you know, the resiliency of people is amazing, and my resiliency to say no, you know, i am not a bad person because these things happened to me. to start digging into ask for help, and for help to actually be there -- i think one of the biggest issues with military sexual violence in the military, especially when i came back, is that there was no help. everybody was like ok, you have ptsd, but mst wasn't even considered back then.

it took seven years for the program i went to in new jersey for women who suffered mst, and there were just be women who suffered from mst and were not just part of the population of ptsd to come about. seven years. just for the dialogue to happen, it was almost a decade. and for these issues to take precedent in the eyes of the media is still a fight, because women are constantly associated with rape in the media, with sexual assault in the media, and then when you are in the military it's like, well, it's a man's world, you had better suck it up. just the dialing -- dialogue of saying rape is wrong. and rape does not just happen to